The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to entertain a PIL seeking a CBI probe into the encounter of wanted criminal Rakesh Pandey in Lucknow on 9 August. “You can go to the High Court. High Court’s power is as wide as the Supreme Court’s in this matter,” said CJI S.A. Bobde. The top court was hearing a PIL filed by advocate Vishal Tiwari seeking direction for a fair, independent and impartial investigation into the case and direction for the probe by the CBI.
Questioning the encounter, the petitioner said that for several years police was unable to find Pandey and suddenly they received information about him and carried out an encounter. The petition claimed that Uttar Pradesh police is trying to become “Daredevil” and due to this, the supremacy of the constitution, judiciary and rule of law is at stake.
Petitioner alleged that the version of police is fictional and false. It is beyond imagination, their version and conduct leave several doubts, which requires enquiry. The police created such a situation that their killing could be justified as a real encounter. They killed a person intentionally and then converted it into an encounter. Since there has been a history of fake encounters in our country done by the police and gave only one reason that they went to capture the accused who open fired which lead to firing in retaliation and thus accused/person was ‘killed’ in an encounter.
“The few well-known examples are Ishrat Jahan encounter (Gujarat) in 2004, Sohrabuddin encounter (Rajasthan) in 2005 and Dara Singh encounter (Rajasthan) in 2006. Also, the encounter of men accused in rape-murder of a veterinarian doctor (Hyderabad) in 2019 and the encounter of Vikas Dubey and his relatives (Uttar Pradesh) in 2020,” added the petition.
It is also recorded in history that 90% of encounter cases have been proved fake or doubtful. The public doesn’t support criminals in society but they also don’t support police committing illegal activities. Several cases have been reported of police acting dishonestly and killing the rivals of a party in fake encounters by receiving money or gratification. Cases also reported of implicating a person in false cases and preparing criminal antecedents and then their encounter by showing involvement in many criminal cases. The law does not permit such activities. The police officials almost go unchecked and unpunished. Thus they are encouraged to violate the rule of law, the petition added.
On 9 August, gangster Pandey was gunned down by Uttar Pradesh Special Task Force (STF) in an encounter near Sarojini Nagar police station in Lucknow.